Continuing On for the 2008-2009 School Year

Well, here we go...the beginning of the new school year is coming soon and we will move on to grades 4,5 and 6 in RtI for the next school year. We are excited, nervous, apprehensive and much more but I think most of all there is an element of adventure in the air. We will continue to progress monitor our students K-6 with AIMSWeb and palm pilots. Stay tuned and the adventure continues.

Assessment and Intervention Sites

Formative Assessment
DIBELS
AIMSweb


Intervention Sites
Florida Site (enough interventions for an entire year!)
Intervention Central
What Works Clearing House
More Interventions

DIBELS Data for RtI

If you are wondering how to start the RtI process it is really very easy. Get trained in DIBELS. There are several training opportunities this summer. DIBELS is the place to start. You will learn about formative assessment which is the foundation of RtI. DIBELS is free but I would also encourage you to pay $1.00 per child to put your scores on the website. The reports that you get will be well worth the small investment.

Safety Net for All Children

RtI has become a safety net for all children at Groton Area School. We have had more inquiries from school about the process. The data collection is the biggest piece that seems to attract educators. It takes only 1 minute to take an academic temperature. This seems like such a small amount of time to get an idea of how reading growth is developing. The Department of Education recently did an edCast about Groton and the RtI pilot project. Here is the link to listen for yourself.
http://doe.sd.gov/edcast/

Progress Monitoring Success Stories

Progress Monitoring Success Stories I am so excited! Since my last post we are monitoring 173 students on a weekly basis. The Palm Pilots that we purchased makes it possible and easy! I would recommend Palms to anyone. All you do is sync the Palm to get the student names to monitor and after the probes are complete you simply sync again. The numbers are up and we are ready to print results. All I can say is WOW!Another part of RtI that we fully implemented in December was documentation. We took a less high tech approach to documentation. I have a large index card box for grade levels k-3. Each child we are working with has a card and we make a note for each lesson.Our classroom teachers are doing interventions in the room each day with students who have been identified as needing further work. We just started this process after vacation so it will be interesting to watch our scores. We are certainly redirecting our energies in a positive way.Oh and let us not forget our "Rock Star" paraprofessionals who have worked with our children diligently since the beginning of the year. They are really taking ownership of the kids and their learning. I am forever grateful for their positive attitude and hard work.

Moving Along

We recently purchased 5 Palm Pilots so we no longer need to hand enter data to AIMSWeb. I would recommend this to everyone. The kids love it because as soon as they are done they know their score. You can also see a list of previous scores. We had one student who's score shot through the roof this week. These results make it all worth while.

The next steps that we will take this month include visiting with teachers so they may think about rescheduling their day a bit to deliver instruction to those most in need.

We must also begin documenation. I am hoping that we might use the palms for that also. Everyone who works with a child needs to do a short bit of documentation so we may keep track of what the child is getting for instruction. If the palms don't work out we will use laptops and

October Newsletter Entry

Title I Language Arts
Nancy Cutler

Studies show that a child may need as many as eighty repetitions to learn a skill. Title I is here to do just that. Keeping skill practice fun and interesting is our goal. We are practicing phonics skills such as short and long vowels, consonant sounds, and beginning and ending sounds. Our goal is to achieve reading fluency and comprehension. It takes much creativity and planning to spark interest in a drill and practice environment but if you drop by and observe Title I you will see children who are motivated to move forward in learning.

Groton was awarded a pilot project for RtI (response to intervention) this year. Title I is coordinating the RtI effort. We are administering weekly 1-minute probes on each child kindergarten through third grade. We call it universal screening. This is a new kind of assessment for us. It is called formative assessment, which means we are looking for what the students do not know yet and watching for growth in their learning. It is a fairly new concept in education and we hope that it will give us more accurate information about learning so we may intervene early before the child experiences failure. You can read more about RtI at www.grotonarea.com. Click on the staff link and then RtI.